CHANGE MANAGEMENT

Change Management



Change Management

Introduction

The lofty British Sky Broadcasting Group (BSkyB) is one of the UK's leading pay-TV providers. BSkyB distributes entertainment, news, and sports programming to subscribers in the UK and Ireland via its digital direct-to-home (DTH) satellite service, primarily through its Sky Digital brand. It also licenses some channels to cable operators including Virgin Media(Ackoff 2003). In addition, BSkyB provides broadband Internet services through Sky Broadband and resells residential telephony service. In 2010 the company sold its business-to-business broadband Internet and data services business Easynet to Lloyds TSB Development Capital for about £100 million (around $150 million).

The heterogeneity of preferences contributes to a mismatch between exhortation and action. The chief executive of Metis points to a divergence in interests and the likely emergence of a conflict:

There are some of the old soldiers of the very old days. There are some soldiers who have seen the benefit of change and are supporting me, and there are increasingly new people whom I am bringing in as fast as I can from the industry who have a totally different attitude (Dawson 2006). And I have inherited a number of people through our merger. So there is a great mix of cultures throughout.

It is interesting to note here the use of the metaphor “soldier”. It reflects a particular understanding of the role of organisational members in change (see Marshak, 2003). Metis is seen by the CEO as an “army” that is expected to operate as a single-voice in a predictable and efficient manner. The metaphor points to a centralised command structure at Metis where resistance to change can be understood in terms of disobedience to a central authority figure. The role of a change agent in this context would be to restore order in the “army”. The interests of the dominant person or group supersede the diversity in interests at Metis. A particular unit's proximity to top management can earn the unit perceived power and respect to “dictate” an agenda that is aligned with that of the senior management. “It is often said that major change is impossible unless the head of the organisation is an active supporter” (Kotter, 2005, p. 62). Organisations do not reflect monolithic cultures despite the likelihood that organisational cultural values may be restricted to the espoused values of senior management. They bear multiple interpretations (Cooperrider 2003).

Change efforts in practice also show that commonly promoted learning exercises do not address radically different ways of doing things whereby underlying assumptions are challenged. The research findings indicate that resource constraints put pressure on individuals to seek immediate returns, inhibiting efforts to engage in radically different learning exercises (Church 2004). Learning is considered as effective when an impact can be observed at the operational level:

Learning for learning's sake is good, and it is even better if you have an actual impact at the bottom line (training manager at Samson).

Radically different ways of doing things, which are generally generated by double-loop learning, are seen as initiated by external consultants rather than by ...